From the Potato Letters--70 years ago: My grandmother writing to Daddy, "We got your letter yesterday & one from Walter so I thought I would write a few lines to you and have it done. We are having ideal weather so nice and cool I expeck most to cool for late corn Stanley said he thought he had 40 bu. of clove [clover] seed he is helping bale straw.... Dad & Stanley were Debating whether to sell the old mules Dad thinks they will make another crop with them Stanley thinks he would kill them in two weeks if he got them they cant eat like horses and would haft to be fed in a different place they would be foundered all the time and eat twice as much too... Stanley did day he wanted a tractor but cant buy one for money not on the market" A good crop report and a short tutorial on working mules vs horses on the farm. As a work animal, horses are very high maintenance--just as they are for pleasure. A mule could get by on lower quality feed and a mule will stop working on its own if it is too hot, tired etc. A horse would go until it dropped dead. A horse will gorge itself on feed if allowed and the result is a much depleted beast--referred to as "foundered" or "foundering". Its a complex condition that causes the hooves to grow into little cross country skis for want of a better image. A horse that has been foundered lost its endurance for work. I have been trying to founder myself all my life without significant result... yet.
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 13:14:27 +0000
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